Junot Diaz - Drown

We’re all under the big streetlamps, everyone’s the color of day-old piss. When I’m fifty this is how I’ll remember my friends: tired and yellow and drunk. Eggie’s out here too. Homeboy’s got himself an Afro and his big head looks ridiculous on his skinny-ass neck. He’s way-out high tonight. Back in the day, before Cut’s girl took over, he was Cut’s gunboy but he was an irresponsible motherfucker, showed it around too much and talked amazing amounts of shit. He’s arguing with some of the tígueres over nonsense and when he doesn’t back down I can see that nobody’s happy. The corner’s hot now and I just shake my head. Nelo, the nigger Eggie’s talking shit to, has had more PTI than most of us have had traffic tickets. I ain’t in the mood for this shit.

I ask Cut if he wants burgers and his girl’s boy trots over and says, Get me two.

Come back quick, Cut says, all about business. He tries to hand me bills but I laugh, tell him it’s on me.

The Pathfinder sits in the next parking lot, crusty with mud but still a slamming ride. I’m in no rush; I take it out behind the apartments, onto the road that leads to the dump. This was our spot when we were younger, where we started fires we sometimes couldn’t keep down. Whole areas around the road are still black. Everything that catches in my headlights — the stack of old tires, signs, shacks — has a memory scratched onto it. Here’s where I shot my first pistol. Here’s where we stashed our porn magazines. Here’s where I kissed my first girl.

I get to the restaurant late; the lights are out but I know the girl in the front and she lets me in. She’s heavy but has a good face, makes me think of the one time we kissed, when I put my hand in her pants and felt the pad she had on. I ask her about her mother and she says, Regular. The brother? Still down in Virginia with the Navy. Don’t let him turn into no pato. She laughs, pulls at the nameplate around her neck. Any woman who laughs as dope as she does won’t ever have trouble finding men. I tell her that and she looks a little scared of me. She gives me what she has under the lamps for free and when I get back to the corner Eggie’s out cold on the grass. A couple of older kids stand around him, pissing hard streams into his face. Come on, Eggie, somebody says. Open that mouth. Supper’s coming. Cut’s laughing too hard to talk to me and he ain’t the only one. Brothers are falling over with laughter and some grab onto their boys, pretend to smash their heads against the curb. I give the boy his hamburgers and he goes between two bushes, where no one will bother him. He squats down and unfolds the oily paper, careful not to stain his Carhartt. Why don’t you give me a piece of that? some girl asks him.

Because I’m hungry, he says, taking a big bite out.

LUCERO

I would have named it after you, she said. She folded my shirt and put it on the kitchen counter. Nothing in the apartment, only us naked and some beer and half a pizza, cold and greasy. You’re named after a star.

This was before I knew about the kid. She kept going on like that and finally I said, What the fuck are you talking about?

She picked the shirt up and folded it again, patting it down like this had taken her some serious effort. I’m telling you something. Something about me. What you should be doing is listening.

I COULD SAVE YOU

I find her outside the Quick Check, hot with a fever. She wants to go to the Hacienda but not alone. Come on, she says, her palm on my shoulder.

Are you in trouble?

Fuck that. I just want company.

I know I should just go home. The cops bust the Hacienda about twice a year, like it’s a holiday. Today could be my lucky day. Today could be our lucky day.

You don’t have to come inside. Just hang with me a little.

If something inside of me is saying no, why do I say, Yeah, sure?

We walk up to Route 9 and wait for the other side to clear. Cars buzz past and a new Pontiac swerves towards us, a scare, streetlights flowing back over its top, but we’re too lifted to flinch. The driver’s blond and laughing and we give him the finger. We watch the cars and above us the sky has gone the color of pumpkins. I haven’t seen her in ten days, but she’s steady, her hair combed back straight, like she’s back in school or something. My mom’s getting married, she says.

To that radiator guy?

No, some other guy. Owns a car wash.

That’s real nice. She’s lucky for her age.

You want to come with me to the wedding?

I put my cigarette out. Why can’t I see us there? Her smoking in the bathroom and me dealing to the groom. I don’t know about that.

My mom sent me money to buy a dress.

You still got it?

Of course I got it. She looks and sounds hurt so I kiss her. Maybe next week I’ll go look at dresses. I want something that’ll make me look good. Something that’ll make my ass look good.

We head down a road for utility vehicles, where beer bottles grow out of the weeds like squashes. The Hacienda is past this road, a house with orange tiles on the roof and yellow stucco on the walls. The boards across the windows are as loose as old teeth, the bushes around the front big and mangy like Afros. When the cops nailed her here last year she told them she was looking for me, that we were supposed to be going to a movie together. I wasn’t within ten miles of the place. Those pigs must have laughed their asses off. A movie. Of course. When they asked her what movie she couldn’t even come up with one.

I want you to wait out here, she says.

That’s fine by me. The Hacienda’s not my territory.

Aurora rubs a finger over her chin. Don’t go nowhere.

Just hurry your ass up.

I will. She put her hands in her purple windbreaker.

Make it fast Aurora.

I just got to have a word with somebody, she says and I’m thinking how easy it would be for her to turn around and say, Hey, let’s go home. I’d put my arm around her and I wouldn’t let her go for like fifty years, maybe not ever. I know people who quit just like that, who wake up one day with bad breath and say, No more. I’ve had enough. She smiles at me and jogs around the corner, the ends of her hair falling up and down on her neck. I make myself a shadow against the bushes and listen for the Dodges and the Chevys that stop in the next parking lot, for the walkers that come rolling up with their hands in their pockets. I hear everything. A bike chain rattling. TVs snapping on in nearby apartments, squeezing ten voices into a room. After an hour the traffic on Route 9 has slowed and you can hear the cars roaring on from as far up as the Ernston light. Everybody knows about this house; people come from all over.

I’m sweating. I walk down to the utility road and come back. Come on, I say. An old fuck in a green sweat suit comes out of the Hacienda, his hair combed up into a salt-and-pepper torch. An abuelo type, the sort who yells at you for spitting on his sidewalk. He has this smile on his face — big, wide, shit-eating. I know all about the nonsense that goes on in these houses, the ass that gets sold, the beasting.

Hey, I say and when he sees me, short, dark, unhappy, he breaks. He throws himself against his car door. Come here, I say. I walk over to him slow, my hand out in front of me like I’m armed. I just want to ask you something. He slides down to the ground, his arms out, fingers spread, hands like starfishes. I step on his ankle but he doesn’t yell. He has his eyes closed, his nostrils wide. I grind down hard but he doesn’t make a sound.

WHILE YOU WERE GONE

She sent me three letters from juvie and none of them said much, three pages of bullshit. She talked about the food and how rough the sheets were, how she woke up ashy in the morning, like it was winter. Three months and I still haven’t had my period. The doctor here tells me it’s my nerves. Yeah, right. I’d tell you about the other girls (there’s a lot to tell) but they rip those letters up. I hope you doing good. Don’t think bad about me. And don’t let anybody sell my dogs either.